The Holy Theophany: A Catechesis on the Mysteries of the Incarnation and the Holy Trinity by Robert F. Slesinski (review)

154 Antiphon 16.2 (2012) places at the celebration of the Eucharist? Is it not worthy of reflection and comment that, when speaking of the “Offering” (Eucharist), this Spanish nun can remark of the Jerusalem clergy, “It is the Lord’s Day, and they do what is everywhere the custom on the Lord’s Day”? Were one to begin not with the introductory chapters, but with the Anaphora of St James or with St Cyril’s praise of baptism—“the death of sin, new birth for the soul, a shining garment, a holy indelible seal, a chariot to heaven, the food of paradise, the grant of royalty, and the grace of adoption”—the contributions of the editors would seem markedly out of place. The near-total emphasis on Scripture and a purportedly “striking diversity” amounts to a thinly-veiled imposition on fourth-century Jerusalem Christianity of what is more accurately a picture of 21st-century American Protestantism. One hopes that future contributions to The Church at Worship will have better success in meeting the series’ aims. Anthony Pagliarini University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana Robert F. Slesinski The Holy Theophany: A Catechesis on the Mysteries of the Incarnation and the Holy Trinity Fairfax, Virginia: Eastern Christian Publications, 2011 viii + 184 pages. Paperback. $20. Robert Slesinski, an American priest of the Ruthenian Catholic Church, offers in this beautiful little book what he describes as a “mystagogical catechesis” (9), relying on the Church’s liturgy (in particular the Byzantine Divine Office) to deepen the reader’s participation in the mysteries of the Lord’s incarnation, nativity, circumcision, presentation in the Temple, and baptism in the Jordan. He emphasizes that this endeavor requires of the reader a commitment to the life of prayer and openness to the riches of the liturgy as the milieu in which one is drawn into an ever deeper participation in the mysteries. The work is divided into two halves, “The Mystery of the Incarnation ” and “The Mystery of the Holy Trinity,” each of which contains an excursus described respectively as “A Christological Précis” and “A Trinitarian Précis.” Part One reflects specifically on the Lord’s Annunciation and the Nativity; Part Two, on the Lord’s Epiphany, the focus of which feast has varied with time and place in Christian history (the Lord’s Baptism, the wedding feast at Cana, the visit of 155 Book Reviews the Magi). The two précis serve to reflect on the dogmatic content of the lived, liturgical celebration of these Christian mysteries. Like Father Slesinki’s other works, The Holy Theophany is a refreshing take on the central mysteries of the Faith—living realities that can, because of cultural, liturgical or homiletic ennui, seem bereft of fresh insights for our reflection. The case can be made that much in the way of contemporary systematic theology lacks the kind of sensitivity to the liturgical dimensions of doctrinal formulation and its expression that are intrinsic to proper understanding. Slesinski, in a brief but rich essay, offers an alternative. He makes available what could be called a recovered theological method (recovered, in that it is deeply ingrained in the Tradition; the term “theological method” reflects a very modern preoccupation), a glimpse at how theology can and should be done. To reflect on the central Christian mysteries through the lens of the Church’s lived liturgical experience—through what one might call a kind of participatory knowing—is much more fruitful than abstracted consideration of doctrinal debates too often falling on modern ears as philosophical or linguistic squabbles, or cast by some revisionist historians as the weaponry brandished in tussles over ecclesiastical power. Slesinski’s approach plumbs the depths and thereby reveals the beauty of God’s dispensatio—the divine economy—and the structure of the book itself reflects the right relationship between Christological and Trinitarian reflection: by prayerful consideration of the revelation of God in Christ, one is drawn into an encounter with the triune God. Rather than beginning with consideration of nature and persons (an á priori consideration of the triune God, De Deo trino), Slesinski begins with the events of God’s saving work in human history as the progressive manifestation of...